I hear this sentence more than any other. I am a twenty five year old woman. Why is it that my shoelaces always come untied? Tie them in double knots, you say? Well I do. I swear I do. And still, my effing shoelaces are always effing untied and it is driving me mad.

I was a Girl Scout. That's as close as you can get to a professional knot maker. And I still can't manage to keep my shoes tied. The average first grader-- the below average first grader, probably-- does a better job with shoe tying than I do. I mean, sure, the first graders are closer to their feet. But that's the best excuse I can come up with. And that's just sad.

So my new philosophy of life is this: if you can't beat 'em, buy velcro shoes. But in keeping with my old philosophy of life (which is: why be productive when you can sleep until 1:00 in the afternoon) I haven't actually bought any velcro shoes. Not yet, anyway.

Okay, I did sleep until 1:00 in the afternoon today. However, it was because I was up until five in the morning. And I wasn't just playing Roller Coaster Tycoon (I have been hearing rumors about a sequel. A sequel! I may never leave the house again). I was writing my proposal for the class I was telling you about. Which I just went over again, and sent to my advisor. Just now, at 2:00 in the morning. I am telling you, I am productive in the wee hours. My body wants this whacko schedule.

(My body also, apparently, wanted to eat an entire bag of taffy cookies today. I have no idea where the Urge to Snack came from, but I'm guessing it probably arrived when the Urge to Exercise disappeared into the ether. I promise that tomorrow is a new day. I am currently drinking water and repenting my sins.)

So, yeah. The proposal. I am hoping it's not too late. As I logged into my other e-mail account to write to my advisor, I saw that the program director (have I mentioned he looks exactly like Alexander Hamilton on the new $20 bill?) sent out an e-mail about next Fall's tentative schedule. The fact that it's tentative is a good sign. As long as things aren't set in stone, there may be time to get my class ready to go.

Next semester our context course is going to be Modernism. My Keats professor is teaching a class on Ezra Pound. It's tempting (the class is in Berkeley, right by my house, after all) but I've never been able to get into Pound before, and quite frankly, I am bored to tears by this professor's lecturing style. He's always stoned out of his mind, and rambles on accordingly.

My Dickinson professor (and advisor, who I like very much) is teaching a workshop on lyric poetry, and I am so there. She's also teaching a fiction workshop. I'm not much of a fiction writer, but it might be a good opportunity to expand my talents. I'll probably go for it.

Finally, Alexander Hamilton was e-mailing us to ask which of three courses we'd most like to take that will be taught by him. One of them is Surrealism, and I am All. Over. That. I love Surrealism, it's one of my favorite poetry milieus. Another possibility is a study of three women modernists which is a close second choice. Finally, there's "Baroque Modernism" which doesn't interest me as much.

It's finally beginning to dawn on me that I will be missing out on my cushy "two classes in Berkeley) setup, though. Suck.

Speaking of Berkeley, I've been picking up hours at my old Starbucks in Berkeley. Working there today, I came to the realization that all the freaks hang out in Berkeley. The Hercules Starbucks (Herca-lees, Herca-lees, Herca-LEES) has a few crazy people, but for the most part, it's a good crowd. The Berkeley customers are ruder, freakier and scarier.

Today a guy walked in and started babbling about god knows what in a booming voice, and then he tripped all over himself and crashed into the middle of the floor. He then hopped up, did a strange dance, walked up to the counter and ordered a cup of coffee. It was tres David Lynch. It was like he danced right out of the Black Lodge and into our Starbucks.

My co-worker (who is competent, but kind of bitchy at times) gave him the coffee and said, "Now, be careful with this, or else you're gonna trip and spill it all over our floor." I think we were both expecting it to happen. But the guy just danced over to the condiment counter and started talking to the straws. My co-worker then came over to me and said under her breath, "Can you ask your boyfriend to leave? He's kind of freaking me out."

The Berkeley Starbucks is also the place where the Polaroid Stalker operates. I was working with a friend of mine a while back (while I was training) and this guy came up to her and gave her a Polaroid picture. It was a picture of her, making a cup of coffee. He just handed it to her and said, "Here, this is for you, from a couple of weeks ago." It completely freaked her out. She has absolutely no memory of this guy ever taking her picture. Basically, he had come in, photographed her without her knowledge, saved the picture, done god knows what with it, and then presented it to her.

Starbucks Berkeley. Home of the freaks.

I don't know what it is about rude customers there, either. You'll get people who throw money at you instead of handing it to you, or who order you around. Today I had a woman who was so impatient for her coffee, she asked for her money back after about forty five seconds of waiting. Then I had some guy who, when I tried to give him a ten, just looked at me and said, "Fives." He didn't say, "Can I get some fives, please?" or anything remotely resembling a real sentence. He just said, "Fives."

It looks like I'm going to be working at Berkeley more often. In fact, next week I am scheduled for two shifts. (Swing shifts, thankfully.) I suppose I fit in better at the Freak Show Starbucks, being the one woman freak show that I am, but I really must start kickboxing every day. Then maybe I can kick some rude customer ass.

With my new velcro shoes, of course.

". He asked me if I was stressing myself out, and if that was the source of my stomach pain. Well, I WASN’T stressed out until I found out I would have to have a hose up my butt and a needle in my arm. THANKS FOR ASKING!"